New York, NY (June 11, 2018)—The 72 Tony Awards, the high-profile annual awards ceremony for theatrical achievements on Broadway, has announced the 2018 winners for Best Sound Design of a Musical and of a Play, marking the first time the two Sound awards have been given since their controversial elimination in 2014. The American Theatre Wing’s annual ceremony was held at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on Sunday night, June 10, 2018.
The winner for Best Sound Design of a Play was Gareth Fry, for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts One and Two. The popular two-part play was nominated for 10 awards and took home six, including Best Play.
Other nominees for the Best Sound Design of a Play award were Adam Cork (Travesties); Ian Dickinson for Autograph (Angels in America); Tom Gibbons (1984); and Dan Moses Schreier (Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh).
The winner for Best Sound Design of a Musical was Kai Harada, for The Band’s Visit. The musical took home 10 of the 11 awards it was nominated for, including Best Musical. Other nominees for the Best Sound Design of a Musical were Peter Hylenski (Once On This Island); Scott Lehrer (Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel); Brian Ronan (Mean Girls); and Walter Trarbach and Mike Dobson (SpongeBob SquarePants: The Musical).
Awards for the two categories were first given during the 2007-2008 theatrical season, but were halted in 2014 when the Tony Awards Administration Committee voted to cancel them, just three days after that year’s Awards ceremony.
While no reason was initially given for ending the categories, numerous Tony voters said at the time that they didn’t know how to gauge and measure achievement in the field.
This year, the reinstated awards were determined using a new method: All Tony nominators voted to create the nomination short list, but the actual awards were chosen by a subset of voters chosen based on their trade.
The Best Sound awards were reinstated in late April, 2017, with the announcement that the categories would return this year with nominations based on the 2017-2018 theatrical season.
That reinstatement came after an 18-month review by the Administration Committee in conjunction with numerous industry professionals, including sound designers.
The American Theatre Wing’s 72nd Annual Tony Awards will take place at Radio City Music Hall in New York City on Sunday evening, June 10, 2018, and will be broadcast live on CBS.
Tony Awards • www.tonyawards.com
